The round temple indicates a very ancient worship, as in the case of the aedes Vestae, and the legends confirm this. The story of Hercules and Cacus, the foundation-legend of the cult, whatever be its origin, shows a priesthood of two ancient patrician families, the Potitii and Pinarii[[807]]. Appius Claudius, the censor of 312 B.C., is said to have bribed the Potitii, the chief celebrants, to hand over their duties to public slaves[[808]]; but in the yearly rites, consisting chiefly in the sacrifice of a heifer, these were presided over by the praetor urbanus, whose connexion with the cult is attested by inscriptions[[809]]. That there was at one time a reconstruction of the cult, especially in the direction of Greek usage, seems indeed probable; for the praetor wore a laurel wreath and sacrificed with his head uncovered after the Greek fashion[[810]]. But there is enough about it that was genuine Roman to prove that the foundation-legend had some of its roots in an ancient cult; e. g. at the sacred meal which followed the previous sacrifice in the evening, the worshippers did not lie down but sat, as was the most ancient practice both in Greece and Italy[[811]]. Women were excluded, which is in keeping with the Italian conception of Hercules as Genius, or the deity of masculine activity[[812]]. The sacrifice was followed by a meal on the remainder, which was perhaps an old practice in Italy, as in Greece. In this feature, as in two others, we have a very interesting parallel with this cult, which does not seem to have been noticed, in the prescription given by Cato for the invocation of Mars on behalf of the farmer’s cattle[[813]]. After prescribing the material of the offering to Mars Silvanus, he goes on as follows: ‘Eam rem divinam vel servus, vel liber licebit faciat. Ubi res divina facta erit, statim ibidem consumito. Mulier ad eam rem divinam ne adsit, neve videat quomodo fiat. Hoc votum in annos singulos, si voles, licebit vovere.’ Here we have the eating of the remainder[[814]], the exclusion of women, and the participation in the cult by slaves; the exclusion of women is very curious in this case, and seems to show that such a practice was not confined to worships of a sexual character. It is also worth noting that just as Cato’s formula invokes Mars Silvanus, so in Virgil’s description of the cult of the ara maxima[[815]], we find one special feature of Mars-worship, namely the presence of the Salii[[816]]. It is hardly possible to suppose that Virgil here was guilty of a wilful confusion: is it possible, then, that in this cult some form of Mars is hidden behind Hercules, and that the Hercules of the ara maxima is not the Genius after all, as modern scholars have persuaded themselves?
But what marks out this curious cult more especially from all others is the practice of offering on the ara maxima ‘decumae’ or tithes, of booty, commercial gains, sudden windfalls, and so on[[817]]. The custom seems to be peculiar to this cult, though it is proved by inscriptions of Hercules-cults elsewhere in Italy—e. g. at Sora near Arpinum, at Reate, Tibur, Capua and elsewhere[[818]]. But these inscriptions, old as some of them are, cannot prove that the practice they attest was not ultimately derived from Rome. At Rome, indeed, there is no question about it; it is abundantly proved by literary allusions, as well as by fragments of divine law[[819]]. Was it an urban survival from an old Italian rural custom, or was it an importation from elsewhere?
In favour of the first of these explanations is the fact that the offering of first-fruits was common, if not universal, in rural Italy[[820]]. They are not, indeed, known to have been offered specially to Hercules; but the date, Aug. 12, of the sacrifice at Rome might suggest an original offering of the first-fruits of the Roman ager, before the growth of the city had pushed agriculture to some distance away. Now first-fruits are the oldest form of tribute to a god as ‘the lord of the land,’ developing in due time into fixed tithes as temple-ritual becomes more elaborate and expensive[[821]]. In their primitive form they are found in all parts of the world, as Mr. Frazer has shown us in an appendix to the second volume of his Golden Bough[[822]]. It is certainly possible that in this way the August cult of the ara maxima may be connected with the general character of the August festivals; that the offering of the first-fruits of harvest gave way to a regulated system of tithes[[823]], of which we find a survival in the offerings of the tenth part of their booty by great generals like Sulla and Crassus. As the city grew, and agriculture became less prominent than military and mercantile pursuits, the practice passed into a form adapted to these—i. e. the decumae of military booty or mercantile gain[[824]].
But there is another possibility which must at least be suggested. The myth attached to the ara maxima and the Aventine, that of Hercules and Cacus, stands alone among Italian stories, as the system of tithe-giving does among Italian practices. We may be certain that the practice did not spring from the myth; rather that an addition was made to the myth, when Hercules was described as giving the tenth of his booty, in order to explain an unusual practice. Yet myth and practice stand in the closest relation to each other, and the strange thing about each is that it is unlike its Italian kindred.
Of late years it has become the fashion to claim the myth as genuine Italian, in spite of its Graeco-Oriental character, on the evidence of comparative mythology[[825]]: but no explanation is forthcoming of its unique character among Italian myths, all of which have a marked practical tendency, and a relation to some human institution such as the foundation of a city. They are legends of human beings and practices: this is an elemental myth familiar in different forms to the Eastern mind. Again, the Hercules of the myth has nothing in common with the genuine Italian Hercules, whom we may now accept as = genius, or the masculine principle—as may be seen from the sorry lameness of the attempt to harmonize the two[[826]]. Beyond doubt there was an Italian spirit or deity to whom the name Hercules was attached: but there is no need to force all the forms of Hercules that meet us into exact connexion with the genuine one. We have seen above that the Hercules of the ara maxima may possibly have concealed Mars himself, in his original form of a deity of cattle, pasture, and clearings. But there is yet another possible explanation of this tangled problem.
The Roman form of the Cacus-myth, in which Cacus steals the cattle from Hercules, and tries to conceal his theft by dragging them backwards into his cave by their tails, has recently been found in Sicily depicted on a painted vase, whither, as Professor Gardner has suggested, it may have been brought by way of Cyprus by Phoenician traders[[827]]; and the inference of so cautious an archaeologist is, apparently, that the myth may have found its way from Sicily to the Tiber. Nothing can be more probable; for it is certain that even before the eighth century B.C. the whole western coast of Italy was open first to Phoenician trade and then to Greek. And we are interested to find that the only other traces of the myth to be found in Italy are located in places which would be open to the same influence. From Capua we have a bronze vase on which is depicted what seems to be the punishment of Cacus by Hercules[[828]]; and a fragment of the annalist Gellius gives a story connecting Cacus with Campania, Etruria, and the East[[829]]. At Tibur also, which claimed a Greek origin, there is a faint trace of the myth in an inscription[[830]].
Now assuming for a moment that the myth was thus imported, is it impossible that the anomalies of the cult should be foreign also? That one of them at least which stands out most prominently is a peculiarly Semitic institution; tithe-giving in its systematized form is found in the service of that Melcarth who so often appears in Hellas as Herakles[[831]]. The coincidence at the Aventine of the name, the myth, and the practice, is too striking to be entirely passed over—especially if we cannot find certain evidence of a pure Italian origin, and if we do find traces of all three where Phoenicians and Greeks are known to have been. We may take it as not impossible that the ara maxima was older than the traditional foundation of Rome, and that its cult was originally not that of the characteristic Italian Hercules, but of an adventitious deity established there by foreign adventurers.
Id. Sext. (Aug. 13). NP.
FER[IAE] IOVI. (AMIT. ALLIF.)
DIANAE IN AVENTINO. (AMIT. VALL. ANT. ALLIF.)